Tom's Journal

Tom's Journal
By: Robert A. Gray

This week I was looking in my Grandmother’s basement when I found a box containing various items her Grandfather brought over from Europe. In it I found a strange diary that I thought all of you might take interested in. However it does use some old technical terms so I will translate using parentheses (like this).

-Feb. 27, 1836-

Dear Diary. For those who look back at these records I am Tom Smout and I am one of the commissioners of Saint Peter’s workhouse (basically an orphanage for the poor) here in London. I make sure the children stay in line and do their chores around the place while waiting to be taken for work and potentially adoption by gracious individuals.

While waiting for recruitment the children will perhaps tasks such as: clean the house, cut firewood, bone-crushing (the crushing of the bones of dead animals such as butchered pigs to make fertilizer), and other various tasks around the Spike (a nickname for workhouses back at that time).

Today I was walking around the dining hall at dinner time (back then dinner was lunch, while supper was dinner) when I heard some snickering at one of the tables. There were four boys sitting there. Three of them were making nervous and scared looks as a larger one laughed and told fancy tales of a strange creature stalking the halls of this beloved workhouse. In response I put a stop to that nonsense as it would only increase the odds of the other children being lazy and neglecting their chores.

However despite my attempts to stop this tale I heard it again around supper time (dinner) from another pair of boys except this time I heard more of the tale. They described the monsters as a creature of darkness with a pale face. Immediately I forbad the telling of this story and sent them all to bed.

Now the candle light is dwindling and I need to get some sleep.

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Well, that is the end of that journal entry I may post more here in the future. Have a good weekend everyone. What did you think of this bizarre journal entry?

So here is another journal entry for you guys. I hope you enjoy it. You know some strange events have been happening at our place. For one: one of our goats just died. We still have no idea how it happened. His health wasn’t doing so well so that is probably how he died. His body was still warm when dad found him and both the dog and our llama Snowflake stood guard over his corpse. We examined his body which was bloated and his eyes were beginning to glaze over.     

But anyway that has nothing to do with this tale so continue reading. We now resume from the next entry in Tom Smout’s diary.   

-Feb. 29, 1836-
Dear Diary. Sadly things haven’t gone quite as planned. The tale of this strange creature haunting our halls has spread. Now all the boys in the within the children’s portion of the Workhouse have heard of it. There have been many occasion where I have entered one of the bedrooms to catch them talking about it around a candle. Well, at least it is better than them gossiping about the girls.  

However one of the boys named Fredrick has now gone missing. I figure he has probably run off which is why me and Ms. Lawrence decided to take a look at the old spike (another term for workhouse). Ms. Lawrence is the commissioner for the women’s portion of St. Peter’s workhouse and serves as a well-mannered example to the young girls.

We were walking by the abandoned part of the original spike. It hadn’t been abandoned ten years ago due to a fire and had yet to be torn down. While it was off-limits to for the children to play around or even within the abandoned workhouse, many of them still tried to do so. Some of the children even told ghost stories about it. About how the sun had gone black the day of the fire.

Ms. Lawrence and I checked the abandoned building but found no sign of Fredrick. We even looked in places where a boy would hide and under piles of fallen wood but we found nothing.

When we returned to the main building it was close to dinner time (lunch). All the children were quite it. Then a young boy possibly one of Fredrick’s companions but I can’t remember for sure, walked up to me and ask: “did you find Fredrick?”

I told him that we hadn’t found Fredrick. That Fredrick must have run off. All the children mumbled and I could hear the boy whisper: “maybe it took him.”

After dinner the other commissioners and I agreed that Fredrick must have run away. However no one could remember seeing him leave. We also agreed that in order to keep the story of Fredrick being taken away by some animal from spreading that we would have to make up a story to set the children’s minds to ease.

At around supper time both Ms. Lawrence and I told the children that there had been a mistake and that Fredrick had been hired on by a local chimney sweeper. This made most of the children act in a gay manner (back then the word “gay” meant happy as opposed to “homosexual” as it does now days) and caused a ruckus. However there was still a small group of children that stayed away from the rest of the group including the boy I had seen earlier. They looked at me with unconvinced looks. They knew that Fredrick was still missing.

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So that is for now. But in all seriousness why doesn't anyone provide me with any feedback on my stories? Surely someone out there must like them. Or have at least some opinion of them.  

iv been a bit inactive but iv been reading your post. It was great much better then expected. your really good at writing story's in my opinion.

Thank you. I am glad you like it. I will try to finish this at some point I just have been busy with some other stories that have come to mind.